Subject-centric (Blog) This topic map is a representation of the Subject-centric blog in the topic map format. It includes basic blog ontology and demonstrates usage of Dublin Core metadata. Subject-centric Dmitry Bogachev Google acquired Metaweb (company that maintains Freebase): good news for Subject-centric computing "Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data..." (Google blog) Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:22:00 -0400 TIBCO and Subject-centric computing I attended TIBCO's TUCON 2010 conference this year. It gave me a great opportunity to explore Event-driven Architecture, SOA, BPM and Cloud computing. I had a chance also to listen/think/talk about the future of computing. And this future looks very subject-centric Sat, 15 May 2010 20:24:00 -0400 Carl Hewitt's Direct Logic, inconsistency tolerant reasoning and Subject-centric computing I have been fascinated by the idea of building computer systems which are inconsistency tolerant for many years. I usually address this problem from practical perspective: I just try to write code that demonstrates behavior that I would like to model. But I always thought that it should be beneficial to have some kind of a formal logic that can provide foundations for my heuristic approach. I follow Carl Hewitt's work for many years and it seems that his inconsistency tolerant Direct Logic can play this foundational role. Firstly, let's take a look at how traditional logic handles contradictions Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:23:00 -0400 iPad, Multi-touch interaction and Subject-centric computing I am very excited about iPad. It makes multi-touch interaction mainstream. iPad revives and introduces new generation of developers and users to the idea of "direct object manipulation" which is one of the key concepts of Subject-centric computing. Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:29:00 -0500 Inference in Ontopedia I just finished reading "Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Modeling in RDF, RDFS and OWL". Great book! Lots of examples and deep exploration of Semantic Web fundamentals. It inspired me... not to use OWL, no... but to describe how we approach inference/reasoning in Ontopedia. Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:10:00 -0500 Subject-centric applications: toward subject-centric computing Recently we added a small framework that allows us to build/use subject-centric applications in Ontopedia. Within traditional paradigm of application-centric computing, we have to start an application (or go to some domain/function specific website) and then we can change application/website context. Within subject-centric environment, we can select a subject and then we can have access to various applications/functions that can be used with the subject in context Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:41:00 -0500 "Creating Linked Data" by Jeni Tennison Jeni Tennison published several excellent blog entries which describe process of creating Linked Data. If you are interested in semantic technologies, you will find lots of important ideas in these postings Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:48:00 -0500 Modeling Time and Identity I really like ideas described in this presentation by Rich Hickey. Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:35:00 -0500 Paraconsistent Reasoning in Ontopedia I did a short presentation about paraconsistent reasoning in Ontopedia on TMRA 2009. Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:08:00 -0500 Association patterns I created several PSIs for describing associations based on the idea of patterns (vs. constraints). Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:40:00 -0500 iPhone OS 3.0 - ready for Subject-centric computing "Apple":http://psi.ontopedia.net/Apple_Inc just introduced "iPhone OS":http://psi.ontopedia.net/IPhone_OS 3.0 (beta) and 3.0 SDK. There are lots of improvements and new features. "iPhone":http://psi.ontopedia.net/iPhone is a great platform for developing mobile applications. OS 3.0 makes it even more compelling for building Subject-centric solutions. One of my favorite features is Push Notification Service Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:17:00 -0400 Finding 'facts' (without scanning millions of documents) The new version of Ontopedia PSI server is out. There are several interesting features in this release. We introduced auto-reification of all assertions, "everything is a subject" now. In the new version, preferable and recommended way to model web resources is to model them as first class "subjects". Another interesting feature is ability to search for 'facts' related to various subjects. Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:32:00 -0500 Subject-centric micro-blogging and Ontopedia's knowledge map Traditionally, when we think about subject-centric approach to organizing information, we have in mind equivalent of "master data" - main entities, their properties and relationships. This type of information is relatively static. Of course, subject-centric approach works well also for representing/organizing information about "transactions" and "events". Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:44:00 -0500 Carl Hewitt - Actor model, OWL, knowledge inconsistency and paraconsistent logic ITConversations published recently Jon Udell's interview with Carl Hewitt. In this interview - "Interdependent Message-Passing ORGs", Carl Hewitt shares his ideas about distributed computations, Actor model, inconsistent knowledge, paraconsistent logic and semantic web. Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:01:00 -0500 Watching an interview about Powerset InfoQ published an interview with Tom Preston-Werner on Powerset, GitHub, Ruby and Erlang. I really like projects that try to analyze text/resources on the web and try to implement "smart search". Powerset is one of these projects. But what I like even more is the approach when we explicitly represent facts/information items using open knowledge representation standards such as Topic Maps or RDF. Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:03:00 -0400 Extending Ontopedia PSI server to handle PURLs: support for RDF, step one I have been thinking about RDF support on Ontopedia PSI server for quite some time. Semantic Technology Conference that I attended this spring gave me some new ideas in this direction. I decided to follow recommendations from Eric Miller's and David Wood's presentation "Persistent Identifiers for the 'Real Web'" regarding PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators). Ontopedia PSI server was extended to handle PURLs Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:40:00 -0400 The new version of Ontopedia PSI server The new version of Ontopedia PSI server is out now. It is possible to represent various types of assertions related to subjects (names, occurrences, associations). The new PSI server allows also to record and integrate opinions of different users. Its internal knowledge representation is optimized for paraconsistent reasoning Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:30:00 -0400 2008 Semantic Technology Conference: random observations I am back from "Semantic Technology Conference":http://www.semantic-conference.com. It is becoming bigger and bigger each year. This year there were more than hundred sessions, full day of tutorials, product exhibition. It was quite crowded and energizing. Sat, 24 May 2008 16:54:00 -0400 Serendipitous reuse and representations with basic ontological commitments Steve Vinoski published a very interesting article: "Serendipitous reuse":http://steve.vinoski.net/pdf/IEEE-Serendipitous_Reuse.pdf. He also provided additional comments in "his blog":http://steve.vinoski.net/blog/2008/01/05/serendipitous-reuse. The author explores benefits of RESTful uniform interfaces based on HTTP "verbs" GET, PUT, POST and DELETE for building expansible distributed systems. He also compares RESTful approach with traditional SOA implementations based on strongly typed operation-centric interfaces. Serendipitous reuse is one of the main goals of Subject-centric computing. In addition to uniform interfaces, Subject-centric computing promotes usage of uniform representations with basic ontological commitments (as one of the possible representations). Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:14:00 -0400 Slides from Topic Maps 2008 I did a presentation and tutorial at "Topic Maps 2008":http://www.topicmaps.com/tmc/conference.jsp?conf=TM2008. Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:45:00 -0400 Authoring topic maps using Ruby-based DSL: CTM, the way I like it Designing and using Domain Specific Languages (DSL) is a popular programming style in Ruby community. I am experimenting with Ruby-based DSL for authoring topic maps. Surprisingly, the result is very close to my view on the "ideal" CTM (Compact Topic Maps syntax). Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:47:00 -0500 Subject-centric blog in XTM (Topic Maps interchange) format XTM export has been available on Subject-centric blog from the first day. But, I think, it was not obvious what readers can do with it. I added a link to "Subject-centric topic map":http://www.ontopedia.net/omnigator/models/topic_nontopoly.jsp?tm=subject-centric.xtm&id=id_d13864244f388d31a24c79ad3f1603dd in "Omnigator":http://www.ontopia.net/omnigator (Topic Maps browser). Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:16:00 -0500 Subject-centric computing and robotics: Osaka will soon be known as the capital of the robotics world..? I was in Kyoto for three days in December. Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto is a region with high concentration of companies involved in robotics. I cannot stop thinking about robotics and Subject-centric computing after this trip. Traditionally, when we talk about Subject-centric computing (SCC) and Topic Maps (as enabling technology), we assume more or less slowly evolving models. In the world of robotics, models are evolving in real time. Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:32:00 -0500 Resource-Oriented Architecture and Subject-centric computing vs. traditional SOA: modeling business transactions If we look at traditional SOA, business transactions are modeled typically as service operations that are part of a service contract. Operation invocations in traditional SOA are not treated as first class "objects". Operation invocations do not have own identity. Components/processes inside of a service and service clients cannot reference individual operation calls. Situation is different if we look at subject-centric and RESTFul services. Sat, 24 Nov 2007 15:37:00 -0500 Multi-touch interaction, iPhone and Subject-centric computing If you follow news related to HCI (human-computer interaction), then you probably saw multi-touch interaction demonstrations by Jeff Han. You probably already use (or played) with iPhone or iPod touch. So you know what multi-touch interaction is about. This kind of interface goes hand in hand with Subject-centric computing. Why? Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:11:00 -0500 OS X Leopard and subject-centric computing I upgraded one of my Mac-based systems with OS X Leopard. It is great. I like it. But from the subject-centric perspective it is still more or less a traditional application/document-centric OS. How can we make it more subject-centric? Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:10:00 -0400 Subject-centric programming language or what was good about COBOL I did a short presentation (3 slides) about requirements for a new subject-centric programming language on TMRA 2007. I made a reference to COBOL as a language that had built-in high-level support for defining and manipulating "business data". Many modern programming languages "outsourced" data handling to relational databases and lost transparency and simplicity in manipulation of data. Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:29:00 -0400 Resource-oriented architecture and Subject-centric computing: what is the difference? I just finished reading RESTful Web Services. It is an amazing book and I think it will play a very important role in defining main principles of the next generation of the Web. The authors of the book introduce the Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA) as an architecture for building the resource-centric programmable Web. "Resource" is a fundamental concept in this architecture. Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:01:00 -0400 About "Subject-centric" Representation of "real life" objects and direct object manipulation were fundamental ideas during early days of personal computers. Unfortunately, over the years these ideas have been forgotten in the mainstream of computing. Not entirely, of course. We have GUI, object oriented programming. Sat, 09 Jun 2007 22:26:00 -0400 2008 SemTech Conference Actor model Model of concurrent computations Are We There Yet? Keynote at JVM Languages Summit 2009, Rich Hickey advocated for the reexamination of basic principles like state, identity, value, time, types, genericity, complexity, as they are used by OOP today. Carl Hewitt Associate Professor Emeritus in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Common Logic Framework for a family of logic-based languages, ISO standard ISO /IEC 24707:2007 CTM Standard text-based notations for representing Topic Maps Cyc Domain Specific Language programming language designed for a specific kind of task (domain) Douglas Lenat Franz Inc Generic User Interface iPad Multi-touch based tablet computer developed by Apple Inc iPhone Multimedia and Internet-enabled mobile phone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. iPhone OS Operating system developed by Apple Inc. for the iPhone and iPod Touch iPhone Push Notification Service Notification service provided by Apple for built-in and 3rd party iPhone applications iPod touch Portable media player designed and marketed by Apple Inc, features a multi-touch interface ISO 13250 ISO standard for Topic Maps Multi-touch interaction a human-computer interaction technique which allows bi-manual, multi-point and multi-user interactions Ontos AG Oracle (Corporation) OS X Leopard sixth major release of the Mac OS X operating system for Apple’s computers (Oct. 2007) OWL Paraconsistent logic Inconsistency-tolerant logic PSI PURL PURL is a URL. However, instead of pointing directly to the location of an Internet resource, a PURL points to an intermediate resolution service. The PURL resolution service associates the PURL with the actual URL and returns that URL to the client (purl.org) RDF Resource-Oriented Architecture Architecture based on explicit representations of resources and HTTP operations (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE) RESTful Web Services * Book * Authors: Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby * Published by: O'Reilly Media * Printing history: May 2007, First Edition * ISBN-10: 0-596-52926-0 * ISBN-13: 978-0-596-52926-0 Robotics Is the science and technology related to design, manufacture, and application of robots Ruby (programming language) Reflective, dynamic, object-oriented programming language Service-oriented architecture (SOA) An architectural style which promotes decomposition of functionality into small, distinct units (services), which can be distributed over a network and can be combined together and reused to create business applications Subject-centric computing It is a branch of computing theory and practice which concentrates on explicit representations of subjects that are important for human activities in computer systems. Subject-centric micro-blogging Form of blogging that allows users to make some assertions related to them and other subjects in a time sensitive context tibbr TIBCO ’s subject-centric social software TMCL The Topic Map Constraint Language (TMCL) is a formal language for defining schemas and constraints on topic map models. Specifically, TMCL is to constrain topic map models as defined by the [[TMDM|Data Model for Topic Maps]]. TMDM Topic Maps Data Model (TMDM) is a part of [[ISO_13250|ISO 13250]], the topic maps standard, and defines a formal data model for topic maps. TMQL TMQL (Topic Map Query Language) is a standardization effort by ISO/IEC JTC1 SC34 WG3 with the objective to create a standard for such a language (ISO 18048). Topic Maps Technology for describing knowledge structures and using them to improve the findability of information, defined in ISO 13250 :2007 XTM XTM (XML Topic Maps) is a syntax for the interchange of Topic Maps. Yahoo! Person Topic Map Set of topics and associations. Blog Blog Post Blog has post Posts Post in Description Date Creator (Dublin Core) Creators Creator of An entity primarily responsible for making the resource. When mapping a Dublin Core to Topic Maps it is used as an association Subject (Dublin Core) Subject for Subjects The topic of the resource. When mapping a Dublin Core to Topic Maps it is used as an association Resource (Dublin Core / Topic Maps mapping) Role type which is used to reference Resources (Dublin Core). When mapping a Dublin Core element to an association, the resource to which metadata is being assigned should play the role "http://psi.topicmaps.org/iso29111/resource", and the other topic in the association should play the role "http://psi.topicmaps.org/iso29111/value" Value (Dublin Core / Topic Maps mapping) Role type which is used to reference Subjects related to Resources (Dublin Core). When mapping a Dublin Core element to an association, the resource to which metadata is being assigned should play the role "http://psi.topicmaps.org/iso29111/resource", and the other topic in the association should play the role "http://psi.topicmaps.org/iso29111/value"